Margaret M. Fitzgerald

Margaret M. Fitzgerald, who received her M.A. in Japanese Linguistics from Ohio State University in 1990, has been a Lecturer in Japanese in Case's Department of Modern Languages and Literatures since 1997. She currently teaches first and second year Japanese language and Japanese Popular Culture.

Ms. Fitzgerald initiated her study of Japanese when she lived in Japan in 1983-1984, where she worked as an English teacher in Tsu (Mie Prefecture) and in Nagoya. She has visited Japan several times in the intervening years. In summer ‘96, as a Japan Foundation grant recipient, she participated in the Training Program for Foreign Teachers of the Japanese Language held at the Japan Foundation Japanese Language Institute in Urawa, Japan. She traveled to Japan during the 1994 winter break and returned again for a month in the summer of 2001, spending one very enlightening week at a pig farm in Gunma Prefecture. Appreciating the benefits and challenges of living abroad, she eagerly encourages her students to pursue study, internship, and work experiences in Japan.

Ms. Fitzgerald is on the Board of the Japan America Society of Northeastern Ohio. She is a member of The Association for Asian Studies, The Association of Teachers of Japanese, and The National Council of Japanese Language Teachers. In addition to language teaching, Ms. Fitzgerald is interested in Japanese food preparation and food culture and in Japanese folk art figurines, particularly the ‘maneki-neko' cat figure.